Firm acts on billion-dollar HK deal

King & Wood Mallesons has acted as deal counsel on the acquisition of PrimeCredit Limited, a Hong Kong based consumer financed provider with assets under management of $US1.15bn.

The transaction marks the first ever deregulation of a Hong Kong DTC to a money lender with a global consortium structure.

The deal included the refinancing of entities in the international consortium, including Pepper Australia, York Capital Management Global Advisors and China Travel Financial Holdings, which have acquired the Hong Kong financer from Standard Chartered Bank.

PrimeCredit, which primarily lends funds for personal loans and credit cards, has around 132,000 customers in total, a large number of which are in southern China.

“We are delighted to have been able to support the consortium on this ground breaking acquisition. Our cross border team was able to help facilitate this complex deal, which will extend the Hong Kong and Chinese footprint of the consortium members and help them to grow their Asian networks,” said King & Wood Mallesons lead partner Anne-Marie Neagle.

Richard Mazzochi, partner at King & Wood Mallesons anticipates more cross boarder deals like the PrimeCredit acquisition in the next financial year.

“This deal reflects the strong interest that we continue to see from institutions in the Hong Kong financial services sector. We expect to see more deals in this sector,” he said.